Manchester United have lost none of their last 14 Barclays Premier League games against West Ham United (W11 D3 L0).
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Said van Gaal: “It’s still very tough”.
Slaven Bilic’s men, who sit seventh in the table, host Manchester United in what will be their final game at Upton Park on Tuesday. “It’s going to be emotional but we have to channel those emotions to be our motivator and our detonator in order to win”.
Mark Noble believes West Ham are capable of challenging the Premier League’s biggest clubs. We were lucky in the FA Cup.
West Ham play their last ever game at the Boleyn Ground tonight.
The united chief rotated his line-up for Saturday’s slim win over Norwich, leaving both Daley Blind and Marcus Rashford out of the squad for some inexhaustibly required rest, while Anthony Martial missed the match in the wake of feeling a minor hamstring challenge in the warm-up. This caused Martial to be withdrawn from the XI and Ander Herrera to be drafted in as the Canaries were beaten 1-0.
United are unbeaten in four in the league and have won three of those games, conceding just one goal in that time.
Herrera insists that their priority will be to win against West Ham United and not to let them steal the show.
Only the teams finishing fifth and sixth are guaranteed to qualify for next season’s Europa League.
The onus has been – and continues to be – on Louis van Gaal when United have been under the cosh this season, but he could do with his players stepping up to fill the gaps left by the team’s absent scorers.
But as a football man, I would worry about how far the crowd is from the pitch there and how hard it will be to drum up the kind of atmosphere you’d always get at Upton Park. We don’t want a rupture.
Are you going to the game?
Win, lose or draw, Tuesday’s game is sure to be an occasion soaked with nostalgia as West Ham bid farewell to the 35,016-seat Boleyn Ground, which has been the club’s home since 1904.
West Ham will move to the Olympic Stadium at the season’s end, with the East London side-who have traditionally stood in the shadows of their rivals in the capital city-set to begin a whole new era in the club’s storied history.
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West Ham, on the other hand, recently faced a complete humiliation in front of their home crowd as the side was beaten heavily by Swansea City by 4 goals to 1.
